Swim, mama, Swim!

I have always considered myself an active person. If I don't go to the gym, I feel like a lazy bum, and just don't feel myself. Before I became pregnant, I was at the gym at least 4 times a week, and going to yoga class once a week, and walking about 2-3 miles with my dog daily. Not that I was in great shape, but I definitely was at a healthy fighting weight. Well, it took us a very long time to get pregnant, and in the months leading up to our successful IVF procedure, I had been through 3 rounds of IUI as well. For anyone that has been through assisted fertility treatments, they will know where I am going with this...

When you don't ovulate like a normal person, they put you on high doses of a drug called Gonal-F, which you inject in your tummy every night for about 5-7 nights straight. Because I was such a high responder (I am talking world record breaking egg production here :), I had to go into the hospital every morning at 6:30 AM to have my blood taken, as well as an ultrasound probe shoved up my hoo-hah to have my ovaries monitored. So my point is that after having that done every day, who really wants to go to the gym and lift weights with track marks up and down their arms? And on top of the monitoring, I was not allowed to do anything active for the days around my many assisted treatments. Needless to say it was months before I actually got pregnant that I stopped working out regularly, and started packing on the pounds.

Long story short, I am not as active as I used to be, and now at 26 weeks into this pregnancy, I am starting to feel the woes of the extra l.b.'s I have gained. I am walking slower (and almost waddling as of late), the balls of my feet are in constant agony (it feels like the day after a night out clubbing in 4 inch heels - and I know that feeling very well), my hands and feet are now swollen like cartoon hands by 5 PM every night, I have to hoist myself off the couch and out of my car, and my balance is so not what it used to be.

But lo and behold there is a magical place where all of this falls by the wayside, and you can feel yourself again!! And it is called the pool (finally I am to the point of this post :)!!! For all you pregnant ladies, I beg you now to go find a gym with a pool and get on your swimsuit and get in that water! It is the one place where you can feel yourself again. Pregnancy does not hinder your ability to swim laps - now it is no spin class, but it does give you a great work out. From what I have read, doing the breast stroke is proven to help get your body ready for labor - and hell it is the easiest stroke out there. Thank god it isn't the butterfly they recommend! Even if you don't get in the pool for exercise, get in it to feel yourself again...just float and feel the magical feeling of weightlessness. Swim, Mamas, Swim!